


Without Mythologies

by Westerosi_Zephyr



Series: Future of the North [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ASoIaF, Children, Daddy Sandor, Domestic Bliss, Future Fic, Gen, One Shot, Queen Sansa, SanSan is sorta in the background of this piece but it's there, sansan, wolf pups
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 06:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4008592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Westerosi_Zephyr/pseuds/Westerosi_Zephyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa and Sandor's eldest child will soon be leaving Winterfell to meet a potential suitor. Sandor wants to make sure she knows how to take care of herself.</p><p>Future fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Without Mythologies

  
_If I could, I would make you a raging river, with angry rapids, supplied with rain,_  
_So you could always meander and forever be able to run away_  
_Without contending with myths wrongly interpreted, with pain._  
\- The Weakerthans, “Without Mythologies”

 

Little Cat spins about and laughs, tilting her face up toward the leaden sky. Soft white snowflakes drift through the air and melt when they land on her pink cheeks.

Sandor’s throat tightens, though he can’t say exactly why, only that something about this scene has touched him. There are times even now when he can’t believe his life could have turned out like this, when he has to convince himself it’s not all a fevered dream.

“Dance with me, father!” she commands, imperious as anything, holding her arms out to him.

“You know I don’t dance, girl. Come on now, it’s time we headed back.”

Catelyn looks disappointed for a brief moment before skipping ahead. Her boots crunch through the dusting of snow on the ground. She is not concerned by his gruff tone; that’s just father.

She’s so much like her mother. Sansa says Cat looks like him, but apart from the dark hair he doesn’t see it. She has the Northern look, what you might call _solemn_ if it wasn’t for her smiling all the time. The littlest things make her smile, like when he lifts her onto the saddle before swinging up behind her. _So much like her mother._

Sansa will be taking Cat on a visit to the Dreadfort after her tenth nameday celebration, two days away. Sandor knows the reason for the visit: to allow Cat to meet Symond, Alys Thenn’s boy. Sansa says no matter how well the visit goes there will be no betrothal, not for years. Still, he feels uneasy. It strikes him without warning how close his little Cat is to the age Sansa was when she first came to King’s Landing a lifetime ago. Sansa was scarce a year older… He can’t help but remember the way she looked at Joffrey, like she really believed him to be a prince from the songs. Blind to the boy’s true nature, hanging on his every word and glance. A pretty little bird with her head full of songs, not understanding how they were using her.

Sandor adjusts his grip on the reins as the horse skirts a muddy depression in the road. He looks forward to returning to Winterfell’s warm halls and his wife’s embrace after spending all day assessing the condition of the winter town, which will soon be more densely peopled as the season deepens and more smallfolk filter in. “Are you warm enough?” he checks. Cat’s head bobs up and down. The horse responds to the pressure of his heels, and Cat settles into his arms. She's tired, but she doesn’t complain.

 _Ten_ , he muses. Another thing that seems hardly possible, that so long has passed between the first time he ever held her and now. He feels the time within himself. Sansa is still so young—Sansa will always be young—but he's getting to be bloody old. Sansa teases him when he says so, or presses her lips to his and makes him forget. _Three-and-forty is hardly old_ , she insisted once. _And you’re still twice as strong as any man at three-and-twenty. Besides_ , she flashed that coy smile only he ever saw, _a bit of grey in a man’s beard can only be called an improvement_.

It’s not like him to get lost in the past, but these days memories creep up on him more often, demanding his attention. That’s how he knows he’s getting old. He remembers Sansa as she was in King’s Landing, the pretty, naïve child who had polite words for everyone, even him. Him! Drunken lout, always doing his best to frighten her, to jolt her out of her innocent world of songs and into reality, to make her acknowledge the misery and horror of the real world. Had he thought to help her by doing so? To harden her before the world could hurt her? Or had he just wanted to justify the anger he felt for everyone and everything, to scorch someone else with the fire that had burned inside him for twenty years? Maybe some of both. 

Cat’s head lolls against his chest. Dusk is gathering, and she has fallen asleep.

He sights Winterfell’s walls rising above the treetops. A few minutes later he calls out and a guard raises the gate to allow them to pass through. The yell and the rattling wake Catelyn. Sandor sets her carefully on her feet and hands the reins to a stable boy.

Sansa meets them before they’ve made it ten paces inside the Keep, Elynor and Eddard clinging to her skirts. He kneels and the children come running to him.

“I ordered dinner to be delayed until your return,” Sansa says, taking his arm. She squeezes it to tell him what she can’t say aloud with so many others near.

Dinner is a simple affair with just the five of them, the rest of the castle having already eaten. Between bites Sansa scolds Eddard for speaking with his mouth full and asks about the condition of the winter town, if it needs repairs or lacks for supplies. Catelyn begins to drift off again.

“How did Cat do?”

“Well. She noticed a portion of collapsed wall before I did. Kept her mind on all the figures. Lots of questions, as always. Looks like it tired her out, though.”

Sansa smiles across the table at their eldest daughter. “An early night will restore her. Would you take her to her bedchamber? I am going to check on Lyarra.”

Sandor nods, pulling Sansa to him before she can rise and kissing her deeply. Elynor makes a face. Sansa stands, flushed, but her eyes hold a promise for him before she turns away. “Ned, Ely, you may play until Resa comes for you,” she says, all composure once again.

Sandor gently gathers the sleeping girl into his arms. He tries to make his steps even and steady so as not to wake her, but midway up the winding stair to her bedchamber Cat stirs. 

“Father?”

“You fell asleep over your dinner.”

“Oh.”

He lets her down, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder as they climb the last of the steps together.

When they reach the landing he pauses. He knows he should say something now, somehow find the words that will arm her against the dangers of the world before she gets caught up in the chaos of her nameday celebration and then her departure. 

“Catelyn.” She lifts her eyes, blue like Sansa’s, to his. The moment draws out as Sandor searches for the right words, something like fear making him hesitate. All those years ago, when all he knew was anger and hate, he’d not cared how his words affected Sansa. He’d just wanted to make her _see_. And maybe he had made her see, in a way, but the things he said then won’t do now. He no longer holds to many of the cruel things he said all those years ago, but more than that, he cares now. The thought of Cat’s little face darkening, the innocent light leaving her eyes, is like a knife twisting in his chest.

"You'll be leaving for the Dreadfort soon, to visit the Lord and Lady Thenn," he begins.

Catelyn nods. “The Dreadfort is far away, near the Lonely Hills. Mother says we won’t arrive for weeks, but once we do there’ll be a feast and songs and dancing. I’m having a new dress made.”

 _She's never been more than a day’s ride from Winterfell, hunting with her falcon in the Wolfswood. Her excitement is natural. It’s not for you to spoil it with fears that will like as not prove unfounded_ , he thinks as she peers so sweetly up at him. Yet Sandor can’t bring himself to let her go off into the world without knowing how it can be. _She has to know. Not everything, maybe, but enough so she can tell those who mean her ill from the rest_.

“You’ll meet lots of people there. Do you remember when Lord and Lady Thenn visited Winterfell? You were little more than a babe, not even Ned’s age.”

Cat shakes her head. “They came here?”

“It was just after the uprising, a bunch of restless wildlings causing trouble in the Gift. Your mother had the Umbers and the mountain clans put all that down soon enough, but once most of the trouble was over she summoned Lord Sigorn to the council. Wanted his help negotiating a lasting peace, since he used to be a wildling himself. He brought half his household with him, seemed like. I didn’t see much of him, always holed up in council meetings, but there wasn’t a day I didn’t near trip over his boy out by the stables or in the training yard.”

“Is it true Lord Thenn has tattoos all over, even his face?”

“Not as I recall.”

“Oh.” She seems vaguely disappointed. “Then Symond doesn’t, either?”

“Not when he was a boy of five or six, and I think Lady Alys would’ve had a few words to say about that, beside.”

A pause. Sandor sees that she looks troubled. “Am I going to marry Symond?” she asks. “What if he doesn’t like me?”

He’s irked at himself for being surprised. _Of course she’s figured out the reason for the visit. She’s no one’s fool_. “Not for quite some time. Not unless you both want to,” he says.

“But if he doesn’t like me?”

“Then he’ll have shown he has nothing but turnips in his head. No loss there—the land’s full of other young lords. Don’t worry yourself over what any silly lordling thinks.” He takes a breath. “Do you remember what I used to tell you when you were small? It’s what you think of _them_ that matters, not what they think of you. You're a Stark of Winterfell. There are plenty who'll try to flatter you or use you for their own ends. It does no good to mistrust everyone, but never distrust yourself, Cat. If any of them make you uneasy, or if they hurt you—” He breaks off at the sound of Cat’s stifled yawn. _The child is too tired for your rambling, old man_.

“That’s what mother said, too,” she sighs. “But I still hope he likes me.”

 _Sansa has spoken to her already_. There’s not enough room in his body for the tenderness that threatens to overwhelm him.

“I'm sure he will, little Cat,” he rasps through a too-tight throat. Bending almost double to place a kiss on the top of her head, he is rewarded with a sleepy smile. “To bed now.”

The door swings shut behind her, and Sandor starts slowly back down the winding staircase. Can she possibly understand? Did his words reach her? His worries are almost as strong as ever. But then the corner of his mouth lifts. _Sansa thought to caution her as well. Beat me to it, even_. Again he thinks, _Shouldn’t be surprised. Sansa knows better than any. And she will be with her at the Dreadfort. Maybe Cat understands, maybe she doesn’t. But she won’t be alone_.

He quickens his pace. Sansa will have left Lyarra with the wet nurse for the night by now. She will be waiting for him.

**Author's Note:**

> *blatantly steals the title of the song I used because I'm terrible at coming up with my own titles*
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this. Your comments are always welcome.
> 
> Note: I've made a few edits to this story since posting it, changing the location of the seat of House Thenn to the Dreadfort to be consistent with another of my stories. Sorry about that little sloppiness; stuff like that comes up as you expand upon your original idea, you know. :)


End file.
